O.J. Simpson died owing over $100 million to the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson

In 1997, a jury in a civil trial found O.J Simpson responsible for the deaths of Ron Goldman and his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson.

• O.J. Simpson owed a huge sum to the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson, reports say.
• In 1996, he was ordered to pay $33.5 million after being found liable in a wrongful death lawsuit.
• That amount has ballooned to over $100 million due to interest accrued in the last 27 years.

O.J. Simpson died owing millions to the family of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson following a wrongful death lawsuit in 1997, an attorney for the Goldman family has said, according to reports.

The ex-football star and actor who was acquitted of the murders Ron Goldman and his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson at his highly publicized trial in 1995 died of cancer aged 76 on April 10.

In 1997, a jury in a civil trial found him responsible for "willingly and wrongfully" causing their deaths. It ordered him to pay $33.5 million, which has ballooned to $114 million due to unpaid interest charges, a Goldman family lawyer told People.

But as of 2022, Simpson had only paid a tiny fraction of the sum, around $132,000 to the Goldman family, according to The New York Times.

"He died without penance," the Goldman family attorney David Cook told People.

Simpson paid so little because he denied having sources of income or property that could be targeted by the court settlement, Christopher Melcher, a lawyer in California who specializes in family law, told The Times.

Simpson earned $400,000 a year from NFL pensions, the Screen Actors Guild, and other sources, but they were protected from seizure, The Times reported.

According to the Goldman family lawyer, depending on the wishes of Goldman's father, Fred Goldman, his team may pursue the estate and assets left behind by Simpson to collect the debt owed.

"We need to get a lawyer or a number of lawyers who deal with this, very smart people," Cook said, per People. "It's a big deal."

Most of the money that the Goldman family has received from Simpson has been through the sales of a book Simpson wrote about the deaths, said Cook.

As Business Insider previously reported, in 2006, almost a decade after the civil trial, Simpson announced he would release a book, originally titled "O.J. Simpson: If I Did It, Here's How It Happened." However, it was quickly scrapped following public outcry.

After a bankruptcy court in Florida awarded the book's rights to the Goldman family, the book was finally published, but with a new name: "If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer."

Brown Simpson's family also profited from the book, but Brown's sister, Denise Brown, disapproved of the publication. She told "Good Morning America" in 2007 that the book is a "manual on how to commit murder" and called any profits from the book "blood money."

"To me, it's going to promote more killings instead of helping victims of domestic violence, who already know they're living a nightmare," Brown said. "We don't need to promote O.J. Simpson. We don't need to sensationalize him."

Goldman's father, Fred Goldman, and sister, Kim Goldman, defended the publication, telling Fox News in 2007: "We can take his words and show him to be the monster that he is."

Reacting to the news of Simpson's death, Goldman's father told The Independent: "The only thing I have to say is that today is just a further reminder of how long we have missed my son, how long he's been gone, and the only thing that is important today are the victims. I have nothing else to say."